


Sound the Alarm

by themoonknowsmysecrets



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV), 좋아하면 울리는 | Love Alarm (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Feelings Realization, Love Confessions, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23747599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonknowsmysecrets/pseuds/themoonknowsmysecrets
Summary: Your phone glows bright blue when your soulmate is within ten feet of you. Elena never expected to meet hers in an abandoned building, used as a bargaining chip for someone else's freedom. Soulmates AU. Loosely inspired by the Korean k-drama, Love Alarm.
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Elijah Mikaelson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 125





	1. The Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> The plot of this fic is similar to Season 2 Episode 8 with a few of the same dialogue lines, but there are slight differences to suit the AU idea.

When her alarm rang, her kidnappers froze.

They startled at the sound, tinkling bells and a piano’s major chord, chiming singsong happily from her phone. Their gazes landed on her confiscated phone that sat on a table off to the side of the room, widening at the display on her screen. Her eyes followed theirs and gasped.

Her screen lit up light blue with a red heart beaming in the centre, pumping larger and smaller, in time with her rapidly increasing heartbeat. This signalled the closeness of her soulmate, ten feet of distance or less, was between them now. But she didn't understand. There wasn't a single soul besides her captors for miles.

She was proven wrong.

The trio -Elena, and her two captors- all spun their heads to the entrance, where three loud knocks bounced off the echoing walls in the vast abandoned house.

Her soulmate. And also a vampire, she assumed. The one that her kidnappers were planning to hand her off to.

How did she get so lucky?

“He’s here,” Trevor muttered, pacing nervously in a small circle around himself, cupping his head in his hands.

“I will get us out of this,” Rose said determinedly, “you have to trust me.”

“No,” Trevor said, his voice increasing in anxiousness and intensity. Elena was sure that whoever was outside was listening in to the conversation being had currently, though they made no move to enter. “This was a mistake, he wants me dead, Rose!”

The girl vampire, Rose, grabbed onto his arms fiercely yet not unlovingly, and gently caught his eyes with hers. She glanced over at Elena, looking at the kidnapped girl with slight remorse but no regret in her eyes. Elena narrowed her eyes and glared back.

“He will want her more,” Rose said, looking back into the man’s eyes. They both glanced back at her phone, which still shone brightly. Rose whispered to the man, still loud enough for Elena to hear, “even more so now.”

Butterflies curled in her stomach, making her feel ill from the dizzying motion. A sense of dread built in the column of her spine, wrapping its nasty fingers around her bones and making her quiver with growing fear.

“What are we?” Rose said, releasing the man’s arms and tilting her head expectantly for an answer.

The man cooled down considerably, still gasping for deep inhales of breath and nodded his head, accepting whatever fate would come next.

“We are family.”

Elena’s glare at her kidnappers softened slightly. She didn’t appreciate being dragged blindly into whatever supernatural conflict was yet to go down in this abandoned building, yet she couldn’t entirely fault these people either. They were looking out for each other, just as family would, just as she would for her loved ones. If there was any reason for kidnapping her, even though it was still considerably wrong, protection and security for family would be the most honourable reason.

“You’re scared,” Elena realized.

They barely acknowledged her, talking softly amongst themselves for several moments, before Rose left to fetch the door, the knocker patiently waiting during the entire exchange. The man met her eyes then, and several emotions flew through him that Elena couldn’t detect.

Probably reminiscing about Katherine, that’s what most vampires did upon looking at her.

She lifted her head high, breathed in deeply once, and closed her eyes. When her eyes opened again, they were not alone in the room.

Elena stood abruptly from her perch on the couch, clutching the vervain necklace tightly to her throat as her gaze met then man’s before her.

The air was thick with a mix of anticipation, tension and a healthy dose of fear… from her end, at least. The man looked startled as if seeing a ghost from the past. If he’d come in contact with her ancestor, then she understood perfectly the look on his face. Katherine sure did leave a trail of ripped out hearts lying on the path behind her.

His haunted expression didn’t falter, and centuries seemed to pass as he stared at her incredulously. Elena shivered, trapped in the contemplative dark brown eyes.

There was something ancient in his face, not his appearance because he looked no older than his late twenties, yet it was in the way he carried himself. He stood regal and impossibly sure of himself, from the set of his shoulders to his unbelievably perfect posture. The confidence in his demeanour and the calculating manner of his face made her breath speed up.

He was gorgeous, undeniably so, but what vampire wasn’t? And what was his purpose here, with her? Not Elena, his feasible soulmate but Elena, the doppelganger.

Without a hint of warning, he flashed before her, now standing impossibly close to her. They were a breath width’s apart and he leaned in closer to her, almost as if he were about to kiss her. Their noses grazed together slightly. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when his head ducked to the curve of her neck, just below her ear. His cheek faintly touched her skin, and she felt horrified at the blush adorning the tips of her ears at the proximity of his face to hers.

He lifted his head and stepped back slightly, a faraway look in his eyes, “It’s human. It’s impossible.”

His eyes returned to hers as he regarded her face, tracing the features he knew so well. He raised his brows and smiled slightly, his lips curving delicately in incredulity and amusement, “hello there.”

From the corner of his eye, he seemed to notice her phone still lit up on the table. He lit up with interest and a darker emotion that was entirely too frightening for Elena to ponder.

He turned slowly to the man beside Rose and Elena knew that the sense of calm that washed over the small group was fake. Her soulmate (her soulmate?) ambled towards the man, tediously slow steps, and stopped before him.

She watched him go on and on about how he was so grateful that this vampire- whose name ended up being Elijah- would spare him, how long he’d been on the run and how now, that would all come to an end. Elena wanted to urge the man to run, that something seemed off, and that the false sense of security he felt was a trap.

“Forgive me, Elijah,” the man pleaded, bowing his head before the elder vampire, “I failed you with Katerina and lost your trust, and for that, I am deeply sorry.”

Elijah moved in slow, thoughtful circles around the man in question, drawing out the fear permeating off of everyone. He was obviously intelligently cunning, and he made sure everyone around him knew it.

“Yes, you are at fault, Trevor,” Elijah began, “Rose aided you because she is loyal to you, a very admirable quality…”

The air became cold with the change of mood. Elena involuntarily shivered as his voice became cold as ice, dark with a menacing edge, but still in control, “and yet where is your loyalty? Then, and now, it appears…”

Elijah paused to look back at Elena and her quizzical expression, before turning to find Trevor mirroring it. In explanation, he proceeded, “offering up your soulmate as bait for your freedom is less than distasteful.”

Before Trevor could object, his head was disconnected from his shoulders, flying across the room to smack against the adjacent wall. Elena gasped in shock and Trevor’s detached body slumped lifelessly to the ground and blood sprayed across her shirt like a macabre piece of splash art.

Rose sobbed, clutching her chest and hanging onto the handrail for balance. The vampire slumped to the floor, much like her companion had done seconds ago. She glared through her tears up at Elijah, who was wiping his hands with a purple handkerchief unaffected by the horrors he’d inflicted.

“You,” she seethed, clutching the handrail tightly as if to get up and launch herself at the man who’d killed her loved one but halted.

The deadly calm expression of Elijah was still in place, and Elena came quickly to realize that it was the calm before the storm. Anything else to push his buttons and it would not be a pretty sight at all. Elena prayed that she would never have to see what he was like when truly angry and prayed that Rose didn’t have a death wish either.

“I said I would pardon you, I never said anything about Trevor over there,” Elijah said innocently, nonchalantly tucking the handkerchief back into his blazer pocket. He turned the intensity of his sight to Elena, who stepped back as he advanced like a predator to prey.

“Now,” he said, clearly dismissing Rose, “you will come with me.”

Elena wracked her mind frantically for something to delay their departure. He may be her soulmate, but he didn’t know that, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to know. They had only met, and she wasn’t sure of what else he was capable of besides killing in cold blood. Would she ever find out?

“But…” she stammered, “but what about the moonstone?”

This gave him pause, and he halted several steps before her, the same calculating gaze directed at her from before.

“What do you know of the moonstone,” he demanded.

“I know that you need it,” she breathed out, her voice sounding shaky and small, “and I know where it is. I… can help you get it.”

He tilted his head and nodded as if playing along with a game to amuse her, “where is it then?”

She shook her head, staring at his dead-on with as much confidence as she could muster, “it doesn’t work that way.”

He barked out a sharp laugh, starling her and Rose, and a surprised smile lifted the corners of his mouth, “are you negotiating with me?”

He met her eyes, chocolate brown meeting chestnut, before his gaze dipped to her throat and to the pendant hanging there. He yanked the necklace away despite her protests, and the locket went sailing across the room behind her.

She glanced up at him, truly scared, and a tear ran down her cheek at the thought of what he might do. Elena didn’t forgive compulsion lightly, soulmate or not.

He asked her where the moonstone was and with no choice, she complied. She gave him every piece of information he needed, at his request. Every piece of leverage she had to keep herself alive, gone with the blink of her slow, human eyes.

“Forgive me,” he said, though he didn’t sound sorry at all, “I need to make some adjustments to my plan.”

He pulled a sleek black phone from an inside pocket and Elena gasped, knowing what would happen when the device was powered on. The air around her grew hot, her face flushing rouge as she gulped loudly, staring intently at the screen. The moment of truth. Time to see if what had happened with her was a fluke or not.

It wasn’t.

The screen mirrored her own, a light blue background with a tiny, animated heart pulsating in the centre. His brows furrowed for a split second and when his gaze landed back on her, his eyes were comically wide. Elena would have laughed… if she were anywhere else but here.

He studied her, from her unshocked expression to her tense shoulders, and deducted the obvious.

“You knew,” he whispered faintly, darkness spreading in his eyes.

With a bewildering sense of strength, Elena lifted her head defiantly, as if to say so what? What are you going to do about it? Self-preservation be damned.

His focus was interrupted when the sound of clinking glass echoed through the halls, loud and clear.

Her rescue mission had arrived, finally. Took them long enough, Elena thought annoyedly.

“Who else is in this house?” Elijah urged, looking around as he listened to sounds that were indetectable to Elena’s human ears.

His lips screwed shut at Rose’s unknowledge of the situation and he clenched his jaw. He thought for a moment, before ultimately deciding that the threat wasn’t a big enough hassle to deal with. He grabbed her arm, only loosening his grip slightly when she cried out in pain, and stormed through the room, her following closely at his heels.

They were to the door leading outside when a figure blasted by, the trio whipping their head in the direction. Another flew by, and Elijah shoved Elena at Rose. The two girls huddled together, one in fear and one in hope of rescue.

“I don’t know who it is,” Rose shook her head adamantly when Elijah’s ire directed at her.

“Up here,” said the faint voice of Stefan from the upstairs area.

“Down here,” called the incredibly cocky voice of Damon from the basement.

Elena’s eyes widened in surprise as a wooden stake flew past her face, embedding itself into Elijah’s left hand. He moved with the momentum yet didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by the wound, if not a bit put out by the destruction of his suit. He simply pulled the wood from his bleeding hand and tossed it to the side. Not even a grunt of pain.

Elena stared in confusion, surely that would have hurt. The Salvatore brothers were never this resilient. They may have just been a little more sensitive to pain, but Elena didn’t think so.

There was something different about this vampire, about Elijah.

Next thing she knew, she was pressed against a wall by Stefan, a hand over her mouth to muffle the surprised huff of air. She listened as Elijah called out to the Salvatores, getting increasingly angrier as he demanded for Elena to be handed over.

“I won’t hurt you, doppelganger,” declared Elijah, voice warming as if to tempt her out of the shadows, “but you have to come with me.”

Stefan handed Elena a note with a plan, which she read quickly before nodding. Taking the vervain grenade, she revealed herself to Elijah.

“Please don’t hurt my friends,” Elena said, trying to make her voice sound innocent and wounded, “they were just trying to help me out.”

He heard the skip of her heart and knew she was withholding information. "What game are you playing with me?”

She scrunched up her face in resolution and launched the grenade at him, ducking as the bottle burst into his face. While he was distracted, she ran back to the spot Stefan had taken her, covering her eyes. She breathed out a slow, long breath as the grenade had barely any effect at all. He straightened after a few moments, entirely not impressed with what she’d done.

Stefan shot at him as Elijah slowly made his way towards her, his body seeming to deflect the bullets launched his way. Without any other option, Stefan lunged for him and they tumbled down the stairs.

Before Elena could stop him, Damon had come out from nowhere and had stabbed a large wooden stake into her soulmate’s chest, impaling him against the front door. She watched in a dazed stupor as his face turned ashen, veins turning large and grey in the face of death. He slumped forward, the wood in his chest not letting him fall to the ground.

Elena was surprised to find her cheeks wet from tears, a puddle already dampening her pink shirt.

She made as if to run to Elijah and stopped, unsure of what to do. The Salvatores mistook her tears of sadness for tears of fear. She tried to explain to them, but her babbling was incoherent and sloppy. They picked up words like “soulmate” and “dead” and “no chance” but were confused as to how they related together.

She didn’t know why she felt this overwhelming grief at the loss. She had only known Elijah for half an hour in the least, and he hadn’t been necessarily pleasant to her, nor was he necessarily nasty in any way.

It was the state of not knowing, she thought. Of not knowing how her life would’ve played out with a soulmate, albeit a vampire… not her first choice. She didn’t even know why they were soulmates, or why they had to meet at all. Wouldn’t her life had been better if she’d never met her soulmate, instead of meeting him for a short while before his death? What was the purpose of that? She didn’t even know if he would even accept her as a soulmate, or if their relationship would have extended to something beyond acquaintances. Had she even wanted him as a soulmate? She didn’t know. And she never would now, she guessed.

Wiping the tears from her face and looking one last time upon Elijah’s greyed face, she took Stefan’s hand and marched towards the back entrance.

* * *

When Elijah woke, the sun was setting. He clenched his jaw at the dust he saw settling on the shoulders of his black suit. He grunted as he pulled the pesky wooden rod from his chest. He glanced at it once, coated thick with his dark blood, before tossing it aside like an annoying bug.

He scanned his surroundings, not surprised to be the sole inhabitant of the darkening house. The doppelganger was gone, along with her irritating rescuers. This called for another adjustment in his plans, though he was more than happy to rearrange his schedule.

The new doppelganger, it seemed, was his soulmate. And he was going to find her.


	2. The Understanding

Elena was prepared to die today. The whole reason for contacting Rose in the first place was so that she could communicate with Klaus through Rose's contacts. There had been a few bumps along the way, albeit Slater being killed was not necessarily in her plans, but she had finally contacted Klaus's loyal henchman to drag her away to unknown doom. When she woke up, she'd been ready to face whatever came her way.

Until Damon showed up to foil her plans. They argued; Damon trying to convince her to not "be stupid" while she declared that this was the best choice of action. None of her friends would die, not to save her. She would never be able to live with herself afterward. And what was saving one life compared to her group of friends'. The benefits outweighed the cons in her eyes, and this was just something she had to do. She wasn't special enough to save. Elena would gladly take the sacrifice.

Imagine her surprise when from nowhere, Elijah appeared in the doorway to the apartment, cracking the neck of the tall man he snuck up on without a second thought.

She knew she had been hanging around vampires for too long when the sight of the crumbled dead body on the ground didn't phase her nearly as much as the sight of her soulmate before her. The dim lighting cast his face into menacingly dark shadows, a devil with an angel's face.

Damon stood before her as both of them took in the sight of the vampire who had somehow managed to evade death by a direct stake to the heart, both in awe and disbelief. Elena had had the slightest inkling before that he wasn't an ordinary vampire: evidence of that was clear in his quick recovery after injury and by the fact that he was obviously still alive after being seemingly killed. A wooden stake through the heart would have killed anyone, vampire or otherwise. But not Elijah, it seemed.

He seemed delighted to have caught them off guard, his gaze never leaving Elena. She felt as though every expression, every breath, every heartbeat was being monitored. She didn't know how to feel about that. And she didn't know how to process the emotions running through her in knowing that her soulmate was still alive.

She gaped in incredulity, not being able to hide her emotions of wonder and shock and fear and… relief? But no, that wasn't possible. She was trying her best to deny such things.

Another beat and Rose had zoomed from the room. Elijah barely spared her a glance. Obviously, he was here to claim Elena.

"I killed you," Damon stated the obvious, incredulity and astonishment seeping into his words, "you were dead."

"Yes," Elijah quipped, "for centuries now."

He turned his gaze towards the two minions of Klaus, still foolish enough to stand their ground with confidence they shouldn't feel. Not after Elijah killed their companion without batting an eye. The fire that sunk into his eyes at that moment petrified Elena to her core, and she realized suddenly that the intensity he had emitted at the abandoned house didn't even begin to describe how he was when truly angered. Elena prayed that such fury would never be directed to her.

She couldn't deny that it was frighteningly beautiful.

"Who are you," he said, voice stone cold.

The vampire, seeming to sense the superiority of the man before him, began to look nervous, "who are you?"

"I'm Elijah," was the only reply.

The unnamed vampire seemingly relaxed. "We were going to bring her to you," he rushed to explain, "for Klaus. She's the doppelganger!"

Elena rolled her eyes and turned away to glare. This was not how her plan was supposed to go.

The force of Elijah's attention was redirected at her, though he still spoke to the head henchman. "Does anyone else know you're here?"

Klaus's vampires shook their heads and the pleased smile on Elijah's face turned their hearts to steel. Ice cold crept through her veins. She had a sneaking suspicion about what was going to happen next.

Without hesitating and no time to escape, Elijah's hands were plunged into both of the men's chests. He twisted, watching as the men writhed in pain for a split second before pulling the organs free. The vampires desiccated, slumping to the ground in lifeless heaps. Elena stared open-mouthed as Elijah carelessly dropped the hearts to the floor beside him.

He was nothing if not theatrical.

Damon bent his knees into a fighter's stance before her, ready to attempt to protect the two of them by any means necessary. He didn't have the chance to show off his skills in combat, though, because before either of them had time to react, Elijah winked at her.

Before Elena's cheeks had time to fully flush, he was gone.

-x-

Elena couldn't say she was entirely surprised when she found Elijah sitting at her dining room table. But that didn't stop her from accidentally dropping a box of her ancestors' journals onto the floor before her. Now, he had an invitation to come and go as he pleased from her house. And he was here.

In. Her. Kitchen.

She didn't want him to know how much his presence affected her, though he could no doubt hear her rapid heartbeat pounding like conga-drums. So, Elena closed her mouth before she caught flies, and tried to re-establish any sense of dignity she had left.

Elena dropped down to the floor and started clumsily amassing the old leather-bound journals back into the cardboard box, refusing to meet the questioning look from her aunt and the smug smirk that now rested on Elijah's lips. Her hands trembled with nervous energy and a thousand questions flew through her mind in rapid-fire intensity.

What was he doing here? What did he want with her? Would she survive the night?

Elena didn't have time to protest before she found Elijah crouched before her, his hands helping to pack the journals with delicate care for their frailness. Once they were finished, she had no choice but to lift her face to his, which was entirely too close for comfort and was flabbergasted when he gave her a friendly smile.

"Hello," he said, reaching his hand out before them, "I'm Elijah."

"Elena," she responded, realizing that before now, Elijah hadn't known her name. He had only known her as 'the doppelganger'.

Not wanting to appear rude before her aunt, who had watched the scene silently from the table, Elena set her hand into his, closing the gap between them. Her fingers sparked, set on fire.

She was so glad she'd left her phone upstairs. It must have been going wild.

Elena blinked suddenly, realizing that her hand was still placed in Elijah's. She quickly snatched her hand away, burned by his warm touch, and went to lift the heavy box. It was already in Elijah's arms.

"Elijah's in town doing research on Mystic Falls," Jenna explained, motioning for Elena to join beside her at the table. She obliged, but warily. What game was he playing?

"It's a pleasure," she said, though her tone suggested the exact opposite. She scrunched her nose and furrowed her brows at the man, who gave nothing away with the false serene expression. A master of masks, it seemed.

Elena was determined to crack his.

"I must be going but I'd be glad to stop by for the journals tomorrow if that's alright."

Jenna nodded a bit too enthusiastically for Elena's liking and swept her straightened hair behind her ear. Elena saw the skin was bright pink.

"That sounds alright," Jenna exclaimed, "I'll walk you to the door."

Elena followed cautiously behind the pair, eyeing the back of Elijah's head with concentration. She was never good at puzzles and codes, and the eternal one was before her. She could only guess that he was here to finish what he'd started before the interruption at the abandoned house. She wasn't sure of the man's capabilities and tried to dim the fear that she felt. He wasn't going to try anything with Jenna standing there, it seemed, but she couldn't ignore the sense of dread at the fact that she didn't know when he'd strike. She would live in growing anxiousness until that time, she was sure.

"Thank you so much for inviting me into your home, Jenna," he said, as he reached the doorway. He was halfway out the door before turning, a hand resting casually against the dark carved wood.

Elena's heartbeat frantically inside her chest, a pounding boom-boom-boom that slammed into her ribcage with the force of a mega truck. Her world seemed to slow down as the corners of his lips turned up, and he winked at her.

"Oh, and Elena, I hope to see you again sometime soon."

The door closed with a resounding bang, the sound like gunfire in her ears. She stood agape in the hallway, scowling at the closed door. Her face burned hot red with anger at the audacity of him to wink at her, and another feeling that she did not want to examine right at the very moment. Jenna had already moved on, but not before shooting her a confused look over her shoulder.

That notion sparred her into action, and she raced up the stairs, gripping the banister to aid herself in propelling forward. She had to warn Jeremy. She reached the upstairs landing and was to her younger brother's door before a figure was suddenly before her.

Without time to backtrack, she smacked face-first into the suit-clad chest and froze as his arms came around her shoulders to steady her. Elena gasped loudly and quickly pushed his arms away. She was surprised to see that the grip wasn't ironclad tight and scrambled a few feet back.

Elijah stood mere inches in front of her brother's door, running a hand down his chest to smooth the wrinkles her face had caused on his clothes. He pressed a finger to his lips, telling her to be quiet. From what?

The door to Jeremy's room opened and he stood there bleary-eyed, in pyjamas and slippers. His headphones were around his neck and he rubbed his eyes before looking expectantly at her. He must have heard a shuffle of some kind, or her gasp.

"Is everything alright?"

Her mouth opened to speak, wanting to rat out Elijah, but she knew before she started that it would be no use. He'd just flash away or possibly threaten to snap Jeremy's neck. Elena would rather that the knowledge of the ancient vampire be unknown to anyone but her, lest he finds a way to hurt her family. Her eyes flickered not so subtly to Elijah and back to her brother.

She waved him off, patting a hand over her heart a few times and faked heavy breathing, "oh, I'm fine. Heartburn, anyway…"

Elena had to continue before Jeremy could question her strange attitude further, so she blurted out, "Jenna wants some help with a few boxes downstairs."

She had always been bad at acting and lying but she had to admit, the ability had come easier to her since entering the paranormal world. It was an entirely useful and shameful talent. She needed her brother as far away from Elijah as possible without giving her intentions away, and she decided that safety trumped honesty.

He nodded and made his way slowly down the stairs, unaware of the figure standing in the hallway behind him. Elena knew she didn't breathe until he was safe from view, but she knew the sense of security for her family wasn't warranted. Elijah could snap their necks in a millisecond if he wanted to. She didn't know the vampire before her all too well, but she knew it was best not to do anything to anger him.

"A wise choice," Elijah declared, strolling down the length of the corridor to her open bedroom door.

She ground her teeth together, hating that Elijah could hear the frantic pumping of her heart and smell the fear coursing in her veins.

"What do you want?" she growled, satisfied at the fact that just because he was her soulmate, didn't mean she had to be cordial to him.

He glanced into her bedroom, seeing her phone in all it's bright blue glowing glory. He watched the tiny heart on the screen for a while, drawing the tension out between them. Elena fought the urge to tap her foot impatiently.

An air of amusement tinged his features as he focused his direction back on her. He studied her face as if looking for something. What, she didn't know. She was careful to leave her face devoid of any emotion, but something must have slipped through because his lips quirked up.

Elijah leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. Elena noticed how the material of his sleeves pulled taut over his muscular arms and forced her eyes to his face defiantly. Whatever he was about to say, she was ready.

"I think it's time you and I had a little chat."

-x-

Elena watched Elijah from his perch on her window seat, sitting calmly among the pink pillows and teddy bears. The juxtaposition was strange, and she didn't know what to make of the sight of him cozying up in her bedroom. She was hesitant to sit down, because that would imply comfort and security when in fact, the exact opposite was felt.

Elena stood by the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest, her lips pursed and eyes calculating the barely-there expression on his face. She was confident in the fact that if he had wanted her dead, she already would be. She was safe in that regard, for now…

Her eyes flickered to her primly made bed, where her phone still lay facing up, glaringly obvious in its declaration. "Your soulmate is here, go to him already!" it seemingly screamed at her, "what are you waiting for?"

She crossed the room, careful to keep the ancient vampire in her peripheral vision at all times and snatched the phone off her bed. Elena felt the sudden urge to throw the damned thing across her room, maybe at Elijah. She shook her head at the thought and instead, she simply turned the phone off before placing it facing down on her nightside table.

"You killed those vampires before I was taken…" Elena started, unsure of where the discussion would go.

Her bravado from earlier had slowly trickled away, making it difficult for her to meet Elijah's gaze head-on. Instead, she stared at anything else: the space above his head, the spot between his eyebrows, the shoulder of his suit. Elijah felt no need to cure her nervousness and seemed perfectly fine to let her stew in it.

"I didn't want you to be taken," he said as if that answer simply solved everything. He continued when at her muddled expression, "Klaus is the most feared and hated of the Originals. There are many seeking his approval and if word of a doppelganger got back to him, this town would be swarming with the supernatural…. more than it already is, anyway."

He shook his head and tilted it to the side to regard her, analyzing her like a fine painting, "I can't have that."

Elena scrunched her nose, "isn't that what you're trying to do?"

"Let's just say I'm not in favour of the curse being broken, even more so now that our current situation has come into the light."

The soulmate bond, she presumed.

"Back at the abandoned house, before we were… interrupted," she said for lack of a better word, "you said you were changing your plan. So, what was it before?"

Elena hoped that he admired bluntness and wasn't annoyed by her direct curiosity. She had no time to beat around the bush; she needed answers pronto.

"To be entirely truthful, I was planning to use you to lure Klaus out from hiding and after he broke the curse, I would have killed him when he was most vulnerable and in transition. The deal would have been that I keep your family and friends safe and in turn, I would get the satisfaction of killing Klaus after his dreams had finally come to fruition."

Elena nodded slowly, taking in the confession. She had to admit that it would have worked, and it seemed like a solid plan. She had been willing to give herself up today, why not whenever Klaus finally showed up? And she knew that a powerful vampire like Elijah would've had no trouble keeping her friends safe. It seemed like a rational, reasonable plan. So, she said as much.

"So…" she said, not wanting him to get the impression that she had a death wish, "why has anything changed? You must admit, it would be a lot easier if we just continued with the original plan."

He seemingly ignored her question and rather, asked one of his own with a clenched jaw, "you knew we were soulmates and seemed quite insistent on not telling me. Why?"

Elena raised her eyebrow, wondering why he even needed to ask. "I thought you were going to kill me," she said plainly, "I didn't know how a little love alarm would change that."

"I can understand that," he conceded, though he appeared to be lost in thought.

She sat on the edge of her bed and brought a throw pillow into her arms, hugging the soft width to her chest and plucked at the stray feathers peeking out. Elena was careful to keep Elijah in her periphery, feigning a nonchalant attitude but secretly curious as to what he would say.

She didn't fail to notice the discomfort, and possible hurt flash through his expression. Maybe his mask wasn't as impenetrable as she thought. His expressions were schooled back to a nondescript expression, though he seemed to glance at her with a softer look.

"I would never do anything to harm my soulmate," he confessed, locking eye contact to make sure that she understood his sincerity. "Granted, you and I are not well acquainted but I'm a man of honour, Elena. The original plan was for you to die at the hands of Klaus but there's been a rather big twist in the plot, hasn't there?"

He flashed from the window seat and now stood a few feet before her. "You will not die on my watch, Elena, you can be sure of that."

Her heart fluttered, hope surging impossibly. She looked up at him, her doe eyes wide with relief and gratitude.

"What's the new plan now?" she asked.

He sighed and cautiously sat on the end of her bed, distance still between them.

"There isn't a definite one yet," he acknowledged, "but I will sure to be in contact swiftly when there is one."

They both sat in silence, contemplating the events of the past few hours and their small yet instrumental shared history.

He stood abruptly and held his hand out to hers. She took it and was pulled up from the bed, her pillow forgotten on the floor. They were silent still, no words apparently needed. Leaning down, Elijah planted a feather-light kiss onto her cheek.

"Take care, Elena," he said, vanishing into the night.

She stared blankly at her open window; fingers pressed numbly to her cheek. The night air came through the window, rustling her hair slightly and cooling down her heated neck and face. She tried not to think about the feel of his lips, gentle on her skin, or the way he had said her name, elongating the 'e', with a slight accent.

Elena wouldn't lie and say there were fireworks upon their first meeting… or their second. But something had shifted in the air between them, a feeling reminiscent and warm. She couldn't deny that there were still secrets between them and mysteries surrounding the vampire that she couldn't quite decode just yet. But sometime between Elijah being in her kitchen to their discussion, she'd developed a sentiment that was oddly familiar to trust.

And she was okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end. I never planned for this to be any longer than one or two chapters; it wasn't my intention to turn this into a multi-chapter story. I don't have any solid ideas on how to carry it on from here so we’ll wrap it up on a high note. I hope you guys enjoyed and thanks for reviewing and liking :)


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